The last bard I died to basically paralyze/stupidity stacked me to death. Kept me from doing much and then kept hitting me with DFA because I was stupid and didn't realize that they needed trees for that.

I was a bard, for like...forever. While you do feel like you're made of rubber and can pretty much get out of anything, that's about all you're going to be able to do. Oh, and be the first target during raids if you're the designated harmonic 'keeper-upper'. I switched class a while ago and I'm glad I did, I feel like I can breathe -- Just my two cents.

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

-- Grounded in but one perspective, what we perceive is an exaggeration of the truth.

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Totes. I wasn't terribly dogged with it, because that was before I had a -clue- about combat mechanics/theory whatever. The learning curve for a Bard nowadays is an utter bitch, and it doesn't help that we're a class that relies on speed... but can easily screw ourselves over by getting a rapier that's faster than voice balance. It might be that if I come back to Bard combat now with a bit more of an idea of what I'm doing that stuff can start happening, but it was looking pretty bleak when we were testing.

Voice balance ought to be made to work like Striking; just to pre-empt the cries of OP, having Voice/Tunesmithing and Harmonics hitting at the same time is absolutely no worse than Infusion/Limb Damage/Striking, with voidfist going in the background. That isn't a shot at BMs; I'm sure every other 'combat' class has brilliant stuff but Bard and BM are what I know about.

Voice balance/aurabless being 3 seconds means you're either stuck with a 3s jab speed, or you're trying to coordinate two differently timed attacks and strip deaf without auralbless. Neither of these are fun situations, you're either too slow to afflict properly or wasting too much time on using prefarar.

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Just to add that if Percussia is the intended way to Bard, it's practically impossible for anyone like myself with Eurolag. Honestly, if they just gave us some bigger armour (BUT TEH LORE, SYLVANCE! TEH LORE!) and said "Your job is to support your allies, not to kill things" I'd be more than happy. Of course, this would create the kinds of bitching that has been in the Priest thread. You can please some of the folks some of the time...

I actually tried to find some plausible Bard strategies with @Sylvance before she started alt'ing, but I was stumped. You can get some nice damage in with limb breaks, prefarar, and vibrato/tremolo, but it wasn't enough to kill me. (Granted, I'm Paladin with fullplate; the only physical damage that scares me comes from monks) It feels like the only way to really be effective is to be able to flawlessly stack Percussia to keep them permanently stunned for 10-20 seconds.

Totes. I wasn't terribly dogged with it, because that was before I had a -clue- about combat mechanics/theory whatever. The learning curve for a Bard nowadays is an utter bitch, and it doesn't help that we're a class that relies on speed... but can easily screw ourselves over by getting a rapier that's faster than voice balance. It might be that if I come back to Bard combat now with a bit more of an idea of what I'm doing that stuff can start happening, but it was looking pretty bleak when we were testing.

Voice balance ought to be made to work like Striking; just to pre-empt the cries of OP, having Voice/Tunesmithing and Harmonics hitting at the same time is absolutely no worse than Infusion/Limb Damage/Striking, with voidfist going in the background. That isn't a shot at BMs; I'm sure every other 'combat' class has brilliant stuff but Bard and BM are what I know about.

ETA - wtf is up with my quotes? Anyone know? My reply in italics.

ETA - and as soon as I post that edit it fixes itself..? wtf?

I actually had the same idea and discussed it a bit with Mizik. Have voice balance work like Striking and make it run on the same balance as a songblessed rapier if used right before or after a jab, or else it uses its old 3 second balance if used alone. Obviously, there're some issues to work out to make sure Bards can't get so fast they beat cure balances when venom/voice/songbird/harmonics all hit at once, but it'd go a long way towards making Bards less "percussia or go home."

If a change like that went through, songbird could be removed and harmonics toned down to balance it, theoretically. Pesante might also be a problem, but all of those things can be easily adjusted, and I'd much rather have bard be usable in PK and lose some harmonics OPness, to be honest.

If a change like that went through, songbird could be removed and harmonics toned down to balance it, theoretically. Pesante might also be a problem, but all of those things can be easily adjusted, and I'd much rather have bard be usable in PK and lose some harmonics OPness, to be honest.

Maybe instead of having songbird be random, have it work similar to Swiftcurse or a devil tarot or something where you summon it and it lets you burst off three or four afflictions before it flies off. It'd be more useful than random afflictions, and not as ridiculous has having rapier/voice/songbird/harmonics going throughout the entire fight.

If voicecraft is put on rapier balance, won't equilibrium from auralbless being 3s still mess it up? Or does auralbless cease to matter as a fight goes on, because afflictions stack up and then deafness becomes less important?

My solution to that would be:+ Change voice balance to work off rapier jab speed+ Remove auralbless, songbird+ Change pesante to strip deafness and not stun, hitting after venom so you can't insta-sensitive. Move it further down in swashbuckling, near where raze is+ Change acciaccatura to double the limb damage of the one jab it procs on+ Remove aeternam/poes (they're cool in theory, but why do bards need an extra get-out-of-jail free card?)+ Remove paxmusicalis (annoying mechanic)+ Potentially slow down the rate at which contradanse/bagatelle/reel hit, to compensate for 240 speed rapiers + voicecraft

edit: Forgot to list reasons/justification for these changes.Pesante/songbird/harmonics: If voicecraft were sped up to rapier speed, IMO songbird/full harms as they are now would be a bit too much passive offence to pair with that, and pesante stun would make that even worse. Removing auralbless would mean bards would need a reliable way to strip deafness on serpents (who can shrug prefarar), and this also adds flexibility, in that you can choose to use either venom or tunesmithing to do so).Acciaccatura: With jabbing at ~2 seconds or less, you could acciaccatura/epseth/tremolo and mending-break 3 limbs, which far outpaces salve balance. It would also serve to speed up bard limb prep, which is currently laughable.Aeternam/poes/paxmusicalis: See above.

If auralbless was removed, then the normal amount of damage we'd be able to do would be cut into half. because we wouldn't be able to envenom, accentato, jab, aurabless, voicecraft affliction. We'd be doing approximately 500 damage per jab instead of 1000. If this was implemented, then we'd need to be WAY faster and we'd need better instantkills because it'd probably turn us into a complete affliction class.

bard limb prep will always be slow. A dsl can prep a limb twice within approximately two seconds, a bard can only do so once. I don't even try to prep and just give up on the entire thing.

I think the main point of poes is that if we ever find ourselves locked and not surrounded by harmonics, we can still call a hallelujah to save us. Usually I save a hallelujah and a continuo in my poes just in case. Although I've never found myself in the above situation before, I often find myself not surrounded by harmonics. ((This probably has more to do with the fact that I suck at being a bard though )).

I agree paxmusicalis is annoying. It's like retardation except it doesn't really do anything. I don't see the point of it.

If we were to reduce the amount of stun, maybe somehow reduce the efficacy of percussia? I think that one is way more annoying than peasante because one can set a timer on it.

Personally, I'd prefer to have some more damage related skills. I find myself having an extremely hard time trying to kill people which may be because I suck at combat. Being able to impale/disembowel as a bard would be nice because stacking 1k at a time at a speed of approximately 2.5-3 seconds is just not enough.

Although faster voice balance and auralbless balance would be nice too.

edit: I wouldn't mind nerfing some of the skills in harmonics in exchange for better voicecraft/swashbuckling. Aside from hunting, they're not really that useful imo. Hunting wise, they're like a blessing.

Commission List: Aesi, Kenway, Shimi, Kythra, Trey, Sholen .... 5/5 CLOSEDI will not draw them in the order that they are requested... rather in the order that I get inspiration/artist block.

If voicecraft were rapier speed you wouldn't be hitting at 3 seconds, you'd theoretically be able to jab at like 1.7-1.8. That would make bard a fairly solid affliction class.

I understand the point of poes, and I don't think it's a needed ability. You already have hallelujah, which is one of the strongest passive curing abilities in the game, poes just means that if you let hallelujah lapse, you can activate it again even if you're locked. Or that you can percussia/lament/berceuse somebody trying to behead you, etc. Given all the other defensive stuff bard has, I don't see how it's needed.

Not sure what you mean re: DSL prepping twice, because with my proposed acciaccatura change, it'd be the same amount of limb damage at the same speed as a rapier DSL, albeit at the cost of using tunesmithing.

For damage, you wouldn't need to pesante every jab if you're jabbing/singing at rapier speed. Pretty much the first jab and then maybe every 5-10 depending how defensively your opponent fights, and they should be undeaf that whole time just from you using up their herb balance.

I totally forgot about percussia, but I don't think it's really that big of a problem, given you have to either predict when they're going to be in the room (and have perfect timing on your percussias) or give them a ton of warning when they're in room and see you playing it. Maybe limit the delay to 30 seconds, which would remove the ability to stack 10+ seconds of stun.

edit: I should mention that the character I play most at the moment is a bard, so I'm not just some outsider trying to destroy the class :PI am also slightly biased towards affliction classes because I think they're more fun to play, but I understand that not everybody enjoys that playstyle. I still think damage augmented by smart afflicting would be an option for bards if these changes happened though.